ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

Got up early in the morning and had Heather drop me off at the Wilkinson Student Center on the BYU campus so that I could meet up with Aaron Shafovaloff from Mormonism Research Ministry at 8:30 AM. Contrary to the reputation he seems to have around the Bloggernacle, he’s actually a pretty nice guy to talk to in person. It’s hard to remember the specifics of everything we talked about. We talked about kids, we talked about different bloggers and scholars and apologists (both evangelical & LDS), we talked about people we argue with on the Internet. He did not bring me an “After all we can do?” t-shirt though, which made me sad.

Shortly after 10:00, I met up with Hales, the guy I dated a bit and had a huge crush on during my first semester at BYU. We caught up on what each of us has been doing for the last nine years since we parted ways after his freshman year. He recently completed a master’s degree at Purdue and is back in Provo doing research. At one point I was talking about how my poor husband had to wait on me hand and foot during certain parts of my pregnancy, and Hales (who is single) said, “That’s part of what appeals to me about marriage though; having the opportunity to serve someone else.” And I thought to myself, Damn, I had really good taste in men.

I then took the elevator to the Skyroom restaurant where I met up with Bruce and Margaret Young. Margaret used to blog for BCC, is a part-time instructor in English at BYU, and is probably best known for her work on Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons. Bruce is currently the bishop of their ward and an associate professor in English at BYU. He and I made contact last summer through my guest-blogging stint at T&S. It probably goes without saying that they were both delightful people and I loved having lunch with them and getting to hear more of their stories and how they have been raising their family.

I then made my way over to the Joseph Smith Building for a visit with my bishop. Well, he’s not serving as a bishop anymore, but he’s the closest thing I have to a bishop in Mormonism, and that would be Eric Huntsman, who is an associate professor of ancient scripture there (formerly an assistant professor of classics back in my time there). It was great to see him again and have some time to talk to him; he sounds like he’s doing very well. I should probably work on not telling him about every struggle and concern in my life every time I see him, but I think I do that because he’s one of the few people who can hope to understand the things I struggle with in my bizarre Mormon-Evangelical world.

I saw Craig Ostler in his office down the hall from Eric’s office and told him to say hi to Blakefor me. Apparently Joseph Antley saw me coming out of the religion building, but I didn’t notice him and we didn’t say hi to each other, which is too bad because it would have been nice to meet him.

Next I went to the library and made my way to the basement to L. Tom Perry Special Collections to say hello to John M. Murphy, the curator of 20th and 21st century Western and Mormon Americana and my old boss. Had a very pleasant chat with him and said hello to several other people in Special Collections who knew me.

My last stop was by the office of a former professor who was unable to see me that week; I dropped off a small gift for him and some pictures of me from my trip.

I then took the bus from the WSC and made my way back to the home of the family that was hosting us in Lindon.

And so concludes all of my recaps of our trip to Utah.